KPLU-FM: Artscapehttp://www.npr.org
Assorted stories from KPLU-FMenCopyright 2014 NPR - For Personal Use OnlyNPR API RSS Generator 0.94Mon, 20 Oct 2014 08:00:00 -0400http://media.npr.org/images/stations/logos/kplu_fm.gifKPLU-FM: Artscapehttp://www.npr.org
Exhibit At Seattle's Henry Art Gallery Invites Visitors To Touch, Take Home Art On DisplayA new show at Seattle's Henry Art Gallery invites you to do something museums usually forbid: Touch the art and take it home. Four galleries are filled...Mon, 20 Oct 2014 08:00:00 -0400http://kplu.org/post/exhibit-seattles-henry-art-gallery-invites-visitors-touch-take-home-art-display
http://kplu.org/post/exhibit-seattles-henry-art-gallery-invites-visitors-touch-take-home-art-displayA new show at Seattle's Henry Art Gallery invites you to do something museums usually forbid: Touch the art and take it home. Four galleries are filled...376noA new show at Seattle's Henry Art Gallery invites you to do something museums usually forbid: Touch the art and take it home. Four galleries are filled...

]]>Wing Luke Museum Exhibit Showcases Bruce Lee's Seattle Roots As someone whose job it is to pay attention to the history and legacy of Asian Americans, Cassie Chinn, deputy director of the Wing Luke Museum of the...Mon, 13 Oct 2014 08:00:00 -0400http://kplu.org/post/wing-luke-museum-exhibit-showcases-bruce-lees-seattle-roots
http://kplu.org/post/wing-luke-museum-exhibit-showcases-bruce-lees-seattle-roots As someone whose job it is to pay attention to the history and legacy of Asian Americans, Cassie Chinn, deputy director of the Wing Luke Museum of the...358no As someone whose job it is to pay attention to the history and legacy of Asian Americans, Cassie Chinn, deputy director of the Wing Luke Museum of the...

]]>The Curious World Of Whidbey Island Animator Drew Christie If you spend enough time in Drew Christie’s world, you’ll learn about everything from an invasive rodent living in lake Washington to “holiday demons”...Mon, 29 Sep 2014 08:00:00 -0400http://kplu.org/post/curious-world-whidbey-island-animator-drew-christie
http://kplu.org/post/curious-world-whidbey-island-animator-drew-christie If you spend enough time in Drew Christie’s world, you’ll learn about everything from an invasive rodent living in lake Washington to “holiday demons”...385no If you spend enough time in Drew Christie’s world, you’ll learn about everything from an invasive rodent living in lake Washington to “holiday demons”...

]]>Why These Seattle Artists Are Selling Cans Of Dirt From A Georgetown BrownfieldA trio of Seattle artists has taken a unique approach in an attempt to “undo three-quarters of a century’s worth of polluting”: canning and selling dirt...Mon, 22 Sep 2014 08:00:00 -0400http://kplu.org/post/why-these-seattle-artists-are-selling-cans-dirt-georgetown-brownfield
http://kplu.org/post/why-these-seattle-artists-are-selling-cans-dirt-georgetown-brownfieldA trio of Seattle artists has taken a unique approach in an attempt to “undo three-quarters of a century’s worth of polluting”: canning and selling dirt...327noA trio of Seattle artists has taken a unique approach in an attempt to “undo three-quarters of a century’s worth of polluting”: canning and selling dirt...

]]>'Panama Hotel Jazz' Music Project Tells Story Of The Historic Seattle LandmarkThe muse behind Steve Grigg’s musical project is a brick, six-story, century-old building that stands in what used to be Seattle’s Japantown. The Panama...Mon, 15 Sep 2014 08:00:00 -0400http://kplu.org/post/panama-hotel-jazz-music-project-tells-story-historic-seattle-landmark
http://kplu.org/post/panama-hotel-jazz-music-project-tells-story-historic-seattle-landmarkThe muse behind Steve Grigg’s musical project is a brick, six-story, century-old building that stands in what used to be Seattle’s Japantown. The Panama...307noThe muse behind Steve Grigg’s musical project is a brick, six-story, century-old building that stands in what used to be Seattle’s Japantown. The Panama...

]]>Paint The Peninsula Festival Celebrates Joy Of Painting Outside The clouds hang low over the water along a quiet stretch of gravelly beach in the Strait of Juan de Fuca near Sequim, Washington. A sailboat silently...Mon, 01 Sep 2014 08:00:00 -0400http://kplu.org/post/paint-peninsula-festival-celebrates-joy-painting-outside
http://kplu.org/post/paint-peninsula-festival-celebrates-joy-painting-outside The clouds hang low over the water along a quiet stretch of gravelly beach in the Strait of Juan de Fuca near Sequim, Washington. A sailboat silently...408no The clouds hang low over the water along a quiet stretch of gravelly beach in the Strait of Juan de Fuca near Sequim, Washington. A sailboat silently...

]]>One Poet's Vision To Celebrate The Beauty — And The Warts — Of Tacoma Tacoma is often in the shadow of its more glamorous neighbor to the north, Seattle. But Tacoma’s poet laureate Lucas Smiraldo says he wants to...Mon, 25 Aug 2014 08:00:00 -0400http://kplu.org/post/one-poets-vision-celebrate-beauty-and-warts-tacoma
http://kplu.org/post/one-poets-vision-celebrate-beauty-and-warts-tacoma Tacoma is often in the shadow of its more glamorous neighbor to the north, Seattle. But Tacoma’s poet laureate Lucas Smiraldo says he wants to...355no Tacoma is often in the shadow of its more glamorous neighbor to the north, Seattle. But Tacoma’s poet laureate Lucas Smiraldo says he wants to...

]]>Seattle Photo Exhibit Explores The Renaissance Of The AfroOne of the first things you notice about someone is the hair. How people wear the hair can say a lot about their politics, religion and even their...Mon, 18 Aug 2014 08:00:00 -0400http://kplu.org/post/seattle-photo-exhibit-explores-renaissance-afro
http://kplu.org/post/seattle-photo-exhibit-explores-renaissance-afroOne of the first things you notice about someone is the hair. How people wear the hair can say a lot about their politics, religion and even their...483noOne of the first things you notice about someone is the hair. How people wear the hair can say a lot about their politics, religion and even their...

]]>Meet A Young New York-Based Brass Ensemble With Some Serious Seattle Roots The Westerlies are a new young brass ensemble based out of New York City. They’re an all-over-the-musical-map group whose first album is already...Mon, 04 Aug 2014 08:00:00 -0400http://kplu.org/post/meet-young-new-york-based-brass-ensemble-some-serious-seattle-roots
http://kplu.org/post/meet-young-new-york-based-brass-ensemble-some-serious-seattle-roots The Westerlies are a new young brass ensemble based out of New York City. They’re an all-over-the-musical-map group whose first album is already...388no The Westerlies are a new young brass ensemble based out of New York City. They’re an all-over-the-musical-map group whose first album is already...

]]>Here's A Taste Of A New Album That Salutes Seattle’s Forgotten Funk And Soul Scene Back in the day — we’re talking the 1960s, '70s and ‘80s — local Seattle bands played funk and soul music in the city’s dance clubs. The music was the...Mon, 14 Jul 2014 10:30:16 -0400http://kplu.org/post/heres-taste-new-album-salutes-seattle-s-forgotten-funk-and-soul-scene
http://kplu.org/post/heres-taste-new-album-salutes-seattle-s-forgotten-funk-and-soul-scene Back in the day — we’re talking the 1960s, '70s and ‘80s — local Seattle bands played funk and soul music in the city’s dance clubs. The music was the...31no Back in the day — we’re talking the 1960s, '70s and ‘80s — local Seattle bands played funk and soul music in the city’s dance clubs. The music was the...

]]>The record – it's more than just vinyl<p>There are so many ways we can listen to music. Usually the easiest these days is playing tunes on a digital gadget such as a phone or laptop. It wasn&rsquo;t that long ago when we had to make a trip to the local record store to stock up on the latest hits.</p><p>The current exhibit at the Henry Art Gallery, <a href="http://www.henryart.org/exhibitions/current/1170">The Record: Contemporary Art And Vinyl,</a> shows how the flat black disk and the sleeve that holds can do so much more than just play music.</p><p><!--break--></p><p>Walking around in the Henry Art Gallery&rsquo;s exhibit, which is called The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl, my mind goes back to when I was 13. I suddenly saw my mother&rsquo;s Beatles albums as art. I got out the hammer, a few nails and hung them up.<br /><br /> Well, this show takes that same idea and runs with it in all sorts of crazy, creative directions. It features 99 works inspired by vinyl. One of the cornerstone artists for this exhibit is Christian Marclay, an artist who divides his time between New York and London.</p><p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yqM3dAqTzs">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yqM3dAqTzs</a></p><p>Back in the 1980&rsquo;s he created hundreds of collages out of records. Who knew they could be so colorful: pink, blue, orange, white. Marclay took different records, such as Michael Jackson&rsquo;s Thriller and the soundtrack to the Walt Disney movie Cinderella and sliced them up like pieces of pie. He mixed them up and glued back together. At the Henry, they sit under glass, but in an old documentary Marclay plays a few of them.</p><blockquote><p>&ldquo;Depending on how I cut it every crack, every click, becomes part of the music."</p><p></p><p></p></blockquote><p>Not too far from Marclay&rsquo;s vinyl collages, there is a video called &ldquo;Walter Repairing Records. Walter is an elderly African American man in Mississippi. &nbsp;It was filmed by artist Ralph Lemon. Luis Croquor, the Henry&rsquo;s deputy director of art put Walter and Christian Marclay&rsquo;s work near each other for a reason.</p><blockquote><p>&ldquo;This man has made it his mission in life to find broken records and fix them back together with duct tape. So he&rsquo;s doing something really similar to what Christian was doing but in a very rudimentary way so they&rsquo;re not to be played again. He&rsquo;s fixing them up to make them okay in some way.&rdquo;</p></blockquote><p><br />The Record includes lots of objects constructed from vinyl: old Billie Holiday albums melted and turned into buttons for thrift store clothing. A Patsy Cline single I Fall To Pieces sliced to a thread and put on a spool, ready to sew. There are also fantasy album covers that artists created for records that have never existed.<br /><br /> You&rsquo;ll also find the seven foot photomontage of David Byrne and his band mates that was used for the Talking Heads album More Songs About Buildings And Food from 1978.<br /><br /> For a few days last month the show took visitors back to the basics with artist Michael Dixon from Olympia. Dixon was making, regular, traditional, records. The music was a moody track performed by the Fruit Bats. On the day we met Dixon stood in front of two large grey, metal machines, just outside the museum&rsquo;s lobby. They looked like industrial strength record players.</p><blockquote><p>&ldquo;I cut records on 1940s presto 6-n records lathes. And these were really popular in radio stations in the 1940&rsquo;s and the 1950&rsquo;s. They are easy to find parts for and they run forever.&rdquo;</p><p></p><p></p></blockquote><p>Dixon usually sticks with black vinyl, but can make a record out of just about anything.</p><blockquote><p><br />&ldquo;I make records out of picnic plates, laser disks. I&rsquo;ve even make a record out of chocolate. It sounded pretty good and it was delicious too!&rdquo;</p><p></p></blockquote><p><br />For Dixon, who has his own <a href="http://piaptk.limitedrun.com/">small record label</a>, albums and the cover art are still very relevant today. He loves how tangible the package is, something that is sacrificed when &nbsp;we download digitally.</p><blockquote><p><br />&ldquo;If you just download it and you&rsquo;ve got this one inch by one inch on your ipod, no liner notes, you barely get the track listing; you don&rsquo;t get any liner notes. The art is nothing. But with vinyl you have this 1 foot by 1 foot thing that you have to interact with.&rdquo;</p></blockquote><p><br />A lot of people feel this way. That&rsquo;s why, Seattle based record label <a href="http://www.subpop.com/">Sub Pop Records</a> puts out a new album every time one of its artists has a release. They are all pressed by a company in California. Chris Jacobs, the general Manager, pulls out an album by <a href="http://shabazzpalaces.com/">Shabazz Palaces</a>.</p><blockquote><p>&ldquo;It kind of looks like a purple bowling ball. And this record too, this is the <a href="http://www.billboard.com/features/beach-house-the-story-behind-bloom-and-indie-1006827152.story#/features/beach-house-the-story-behind-bloom-and-indie-1006827152.story">Beach House</a> record we put out in May. You can get it on black vinyl and white vinyl and glow in the dark vinyl.&rdquo;</p></blockquote><p>That&rsquo;s right, a glow in the dark record. Back at the Henry, artist Michael Dixon says he has 3-thousand albums in his collection. If you&rsquo;re wondering what that would look like stacked in a neat pile just check out the first piece in The Record exhibit. It&rsquo;s a sculpture by Peruvian Artist William Cordova called Greatest Hits. Three-thousand records, one of top of the other, creates a 13-foot tower.</p>Mon, 13 Aug 2012 07:30:00 -0400http://www.kplu.org/post/record-its-more-just-vinyl
http://www.kplu.org/post/record-its-more-just-vinyl<p>There are so many ways we can listen to music. Usually the easiest these days is playing tunes on a digital gadget such as a phone or laptop. It wasn&rsquo;t that long ago when we had to make a trip to the local record store to stock up on the latest hits.</p><p>The current exhibit at the Henry Art Gallery, <a href="http://www.henryart.org/exhibitions/current/1170">The Record: Contemporary Art And Vinyl,</a> shows how the flat black disk and the sleeve that holds can do so much more than just play music.</p><p><!--break--></p><p>Walking around in the Henry Art Gallery&rsquo;s exhibit, which is called The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl, my mind goes back to when I was 13. I suddenly saw my mother&rsquo;s Beatles albums as art. I got out the hammer, a few nails and hung them up.<br /><br /> Well, this show takes that same idea and runs with it in all sorts of crazy, creative directions. It features 99 works inspired by vinyl. One of the cornerstone artists for this exhibit is Christian Marclay, an artist who divides his time between New York and London.</p><p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yqM3dAqTzs">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yqM3dAqTzs</a></p><p>Back in the 1980&rsquo;s he created hundreds of collages out of records. Who knew they could be so colorful: pink, blue, orange, white. Marclay took different records, such as Michael Jackson&rsquo;s Thriller and the soundtrack to the Walt Disney movie Cinderella and sliced them up like pieces of pie. He mixed them up and glued back together. At the Henry, they sit under glass, but in an old documentary Marclay plays a few of them.</p><blockquote><p>&ldquo;Depending on how I cut it every crack, every click, becomes part of the music."</p><p></p><p></p></blockquote><p>Not too far from Marclay&rsquo;s vinyl collages, there is a video called &ldquo;Walter Repairing Records. Walter is an elderly African American man in Mississippi. &nbsp;It was filmed by artist Ralph Lemon. Luis Croquor, the Henry&rsquo;s deputy director of art put Walter and Christian Marclay&rsquo;s work near each other for a reason.</p><blockquote><p>&ldquo;This man has made it his mission in life to find broken records and fix them back together with duct tape. So he&rsquo;s doing something really similar to what Christian was doing but in a very rudimentary way so they&rsquo;re not to be played again. He&rsquo;s fixing them up to make them okay in some way.&rdquo;</p></blockquote><p><br />The Record includes lots of objects constructed from vinyl: old Billie Holiday albums melted and turned into buttons for thrift store clothing. A Patsy Cline single I Fall To Pieces sliced to a thread and put on a spool, ready to sew. There are also fantasy album covers that artists created for records that have never existed.<br /><br /> You&rsquo;ll also find the seven foot photomontage of David Byrne and his band mates that was used for the Talking Heads album More Songs About Buildings And Food from 1978.<br /><br /> For a few days last month the show took visitors back to the basics with artist Michael Dixon from Olympia. Dixon was making, regular, traditional, records. The music was a moody track performed by the Fruit Bats. On the day we met Dixon stood in front of two large grey, metal machines, just outside the museum&rsquo;s lobby. They looked like industrial strength record players.</p><blockquote><p>&ldquo;I cut records on 1940s presto 6-n records lathes. And these were really popular in radio stations in the 1940&rsquo;s and the 1950&rsquo;s. They are easy to find parts for and they run forever.&rdquo;</p><p></p><p></p></blockquote><p>Dixon usually sticks with black vinyl, but can make a record out of just about anything.</p><blockquote><p><br />&ldquo;I make records out of picnic plates, laser disks. I&rsquo;ve even make a record out of chocolate. It sounded pretty good and it was delicious too!&rdquo;</p><p></p></blockquote><p><br />For Dixon, who has his own <a href="http://piaptk.limitedrun.com/">small record label</a>, albums and the cover art are still very relevant today. He loves how tangible the package is, something that is sacrificed when &nbsp;we download digitally.</p><blockquote><p><br />&ldquo;If you just download it and you&rsquo;ve got this one inch by one inch on your ipod, no liner notes, you barely get the track listing; you don&rsquo;t get any liner notes. The art is nothing. But with vinyl you have this 1 foot by 1 foot thing that you have to interact with.&rdquo;</p></blockquote><p><br />A lot of people feel this way. That&rsquo;s why, Seattle based record label <a href="http://www.subpop.com/">Sub Pop Records</a> puts out a new album every time one of its artists has a release. They are all pressed by a company in California. Chris Jacobs, the general Manager, pulls out an album by <a href="http://shabazzpalaces.com/">Shabazz Palaces</a>.</p><blockquote><p>&ldquo;It kind of looks like a purple bowling ball. And this record too, this is the <a href="http://www.billboard.com/features/beach-house-the-story-behind-bloom-and-indie-1006827152.story#/features/beach-house-the-story-behind-bloom-and-indie-1006827152.story">Beach House</a> record we put out in May. You can get it on black vinyl and white vinyl and glow in the dark vinyl.&rdquo;</p></blockquote><p>That&rsquo;s right, a glow in the dark record. Back at the Henry, artist Michael Dixon says he has 3-thousand albums in his collection. If you&rsquo;re wondering what that would look like stacked in a neat pile just check out the first piece in The Record exhibit. It&rsquo;s a sculpture by Peruvian Artist William Cordova called Greatest Hits. Three-thousand records, one of top of the other, creates a 13-foot tower.</p>495no

There are so many ways we can listen to music. Usually the easiest these days is playing tunes on a digital gadget such as a phone or laptop. It wasn’t that long ago when we had to make a trip to the local record store to stock up on the latest hits.

Walking around in the Henry Art Gallery’s exhibit, which is called The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl, my mind goes back to when I was 13. I suddenly saw my mother’s Beatles albums as art. I got out the hammer, a few nails and hung them up.

Well, this show takes that same idea and runs with it in all sorts of crazy, creative directions. It features 99 works inspired by vinyl. One of the cornerstone artists for this exhibit is Christian Marclay, an artist who divides his time between New York and London.

Back in the 1980’s he created hundreds of collages out of records. Who knew they could be so colorful: pink, blue, orange, white. Marclay took different records, such as Michael Jackson’s Thriller and the soundtrack to the Walt Disney movie Cinderella and sliced them up like pieces of pie. He mixed them up and glued back together. At the Henry, they sit under glass, but in an old documentary Marclay plays a few of them.

“Depending on how I cut it every crack, every click, becomes part of the music."

Not too far from Marclay’s vinyl collages, there is a video called “Walter Repairing Records. Walter is an elderly African American man in Mississippi. It was filmed by artist Ralph Lemon. Luis Croquor, the Henry’s deputy director of art put Walter and Christian Marclay’s work near each other for a reason.

“This man has made it his mission in life to find broken records and fix them back together with duct tape. So he’s doing something really similar to what Christian was doing but in a very rudimentary way so they’re not to be played again. He’s fixing them up to make them okay in some way.”

The Record includes lots of objects constructed from vinyl: old Billie Holiday albums melted and turned into buttons for thrift store clothing. A Patsy Cline single I Fall To Pieces sliced to a thread and put on a spool, ready to sew. There are also fantasy album covers that artists created for records that have never existed.

You’ll also find the seven foot photomontage of David Byrne and his band mates that was used for the Talking Heads album More Songs About Buildings And Food from 1978.

For a few days last month the show took visitors back to the basics with artist Michael Dixon from Olympia. Dixon was making, regular, traditional, records. The music was a moody track performed by the Fruit Bats. On the day we met Dixon stood in front of two large grey, metal machines, just outside the museum’s lobby. They looked like industrial strength record players.

“I cut records on 1940s presto 6-n records lathes. And these were really popular in radio stations in the 1940’s and the 1950’s. They are easy to find parts for and they run forever.”

Dixon usually sticks with black vinyl, but can make a record out of just about anything.

“I make records out of picnic plates, laser disks. I’ve even make a record out of chocolate. It sounded pretty good and it was delicious too!”

For Dixon, who has his own small record label, albums and the cover art are still very relevant today. He loves how tangible the package is, something that is sacrificed when we download digitally.

“If you just download it and you’ve got this one inch by one inch on your ipod, no liner notes, you barely get the track listing; you don’t get any liner notes. The art is nothing. But with vinyl you have this 1 foot by 1 foot thing that you have to interact with.”

A lot of people feel this way. That’s why, Seattle based record label Sub Pop Records puts out a new album every time one of its artists has a release. They are all pressed by a company in California. Chris Jacobs, the general Manager, pulls out an album by Shabazz Palaces.

“It kind of looks like a purple bowling ball. And this record too, this is the Beach House record we put out in May. You can get it on black vinyl and white vinyl and glow in the dark vinyl.”

That’s right, a glow in the dark record. Back at the Henry, artist Michael Dixon says he has 3-thousand albums in his collection. If you’re wondering what that would look like stacked in a neat pile just check out the first piece in The Record exhibit. It’s a sculpture by Peruvian Artist William Cordova called Greatest Hits. Three-thousand records, one of top of the other, creates a 13-foot tower.

]]>John Cage: a great of the musical avant-garde, with Seattle roots<p>Many experts call him the greatest iconoclast of 20th-century music.</p><p>The avant-garde composer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage">John Cage</a> is perhaps best known for his pioneering use of silence in music. He also broke ground with the use of everyday objects as instruments, electronics and chance in composition.</p><p>He was born in California and died in New York. But some of his most formative years took place in Seattle.</p><p>Festivals around the world are <a href="http://johncage.org/2012/events.html">celebrating his centennial this year,</a> many of them highlighting innovations that Cage first developed in the Pacific Northwest.</p><p>Case in point: the <a href="http://www.achtbruecken.de/"><em>Acht Bruecken</em></a> festival of new music, in Cologne, Germany.</p><p>An open-air tribute to Cage opened the eight-day celebration of his vision. At the foot of the famous Cologne Cathedral, four choirs, two orchestras and a big band performed a new piece called&nbsp; <em>EurOratorio</em>.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s an hour-long collage of quotes from well-known classical tunes, peppered with weird sounds and unconventional instruments. Power tools, hair dryers, even a car that drives onto the plaza were part of the composition.</p><p>Along with singing and conducting, Baritone Thomas Bonni got to play a lawn mower and his favorite: a nail gun.</p><p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s really a nice instrument. Very funny, fun for boys, very heavy and &lsquo;paff!&rsquo; &hellip;super!&rdquo; Bonni exclaimed, smiling after the show.</p><p>He says this kind of work inspires him, because he gets to play such an active role. The performers communicate via radio headsets and are given general instructions, such as &ldquo;create a field in A minor.&rdquo;</p><p>&ldquo;But we can also use our own impression and do what we want. We can react on what the others are doing. It&rsquo;s like playing, like playing like children play,&rdquo; Bonni says.</p><p>Festival Director<a href="http://www.koelner-philharmonie.de/louwrens-langevoort/"> Louwrens Langevoort</a>, says as noisy as the opening performance turned out, it&rsquo;s above all the composer&rsquo;s pioneering work with silence that sets him apart, especially the famous piece, <em>4&rsquo;33&rdquo;</em>, in which a pianist comes on stage and sits there for 4 minutes and 33 seconds, never playing any notes.</p><blockquote><p>&ldquo;He made people discover the music or the sounds around themselves. Or: the fact that there is never no sound. And that&rsquo;s something which was new for his time and I think it&rsquo;s still very revolutionary,&rdquo; Langevoort says.</p></blockquote><p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHnL7aS64Y</p><p>Langevoort is also the head of the <a href="http://www.koelner-philharmonie.de/">Cologne Philharmonic</a>. He says Cage wasn&rsquo;t afraid to do unorthodox things.An interactive display inside the lobby of the symphony hall illustrates that with one of his most famous innovations: a prepared piano.</p><p>Passersby are encouraged to put screws, straws, bits of paper and ping pong balls between the piano&rsquo;s strings, to experiment with altering its sound.</p><p>Langevoort demonstrates how a clear note is dampened and ends up sounding more like a gong.</p><p>"And if you do that on every note in a different preparation, you get a very interesting score, in which we say, &lsquo;are we playing piano? Or is this a percussion instrument?&rsquo; And that makes it so funny,&rdquo; he says.</p><p>And Langevoort says the fascination with Cage becomes more meaningful because his ideas extended beyond music. He was also interested in visual arts and collaborated for most of his life with his partner, Merce Cunningham, a modern ballet dancer.</p><blockquote><p>&lsquo;Let&rsquo;s say, he was not stuck only on music, but he was really an artist who was wide into arts. And that&#39;s something which is different with quite a lot of composers, who make beautiful music, but are forgetting that they&#39;re living in a world which is bigger than only music,&rdquo; Lagevoort says.</p></blockquote><p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca2iVll-N0g</p><p>Some say Cage&rsquo;s interdisciplinary approach first blossomed in the Pacific Northwest.</p><blockquote><p>&ldquo;It was really in Seattle that Cage emerged as a professional composer,&rdquo; says <a href="http://www.cornish.edu/music/faculty/jarrad_powell/">Jarrad Powell</a>, who teaches composition and gamelan at <a href="http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=596">Cornish College of the Arts.</a></p></blockquote><p>Cage worked there for two intense years, starting in 1938. He was an accompanist and composer in the dance department.</p><p>&ldquo;Ultimately, he wasn&rsquo;t here that long. 1938 through 1940. But while he was here it was a very fertile time for him,&rdquo; Powell says.</p><p>Powell says Cage developed ideas in Seattle that influenced his music for the rest of his career - innovations in materials, methods and structure.</p><p>While at Cornish, he wrote the very first piece for prepared piano &ndash; which for the next decade became one of his signature sounds.</p><p></p><p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwJLGUgs1jc</p><p>He founded an avant-garde percussion ensemble that toured around the region, with dancers performing many of his compositions.</p><p>And he began experimenting with electronics. Powell says Cornish had one of the first radio schools in the US. Cage saw an opportunity in the studios.</p><p>He made a piece called &lsquo;Imaginary Landscape No. 1&rsquo; , which used the turntables in the radio studio and records&nbsp; of test tones that were meant for testing the equipment. Cage turned them into musical sounds and&nbsp; blended them with acoustic sound sources, such as a bowed symbol and a piano.</p><blockquote><p>"And a lot of people cite that as the first example of DJing and hip hop or something &ndash; because he&rsquo;s actually not just playing a record, he&rsquo;s using the record itself and the turntable as a musical instrument,&rdquo; Powell says.</p></blockquote><p><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_CC_tdtTjs</p><p>Powell says this kind of innovation flourished because of Cornish and its founder&rsquo;s philosophy, which created a good atmosphere for interdisciplinary adventures in creativity.</p><blockquote><p>&ldquo;Nellie Cornish was very innovative. Cornish was a school of allied arts. And that was a rare thing in the world. One where you could have dance and music together as well as visual art. And of course Cage met Morris Graves and Mark Tobey here &ndash; huge influences on his career. They were visual artists. He met Merce Cunningham here, a dancer. So those people were all huge influences on his life.&rdquo;</p></blockquote><p>But as much as the environment fostered him, Powell says it was also John Cage&rsquo;s unique spirit that pushed his art forward. He was a lighthearted revolutionary with a sunny disposition. In situations when people might be&nbsp; inclined to mock him, he would just smile and power through. A great example of this was his appearance in 1960 on the popular TV game show, <em>What&#39;s My Line</em>.</p><p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSulycqZH-U</p><blockquote><p>&ldquo;The audience loved him because of his personality and how he was able to communicate to them. I think that was one of his strengths. So over time, people opened up more to his music. And now, you can&rsquo;t &ndash; you have to consider him to be one of the important composers of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, even if your musical interests do not embrace his music.&rdquo;</p></blockquote><p>Cologne&rsquo;s festival director Langevoort says that spirit is alive and well in all of the interactive music they&rsquo;ve been re-creating &ndash; like the prepared piano that people are encouraged to alter with straws and ping pong balls. He says installations like this one take the art off a pedestal and help grow the audience for classical music.</p><blockquote><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s just fun. And if you make fun of music, you&rsquo;re much closer to it,&rdquo; Langevoort says.</p></blockquote><p>Cologne&rsquo;s festival is one of <a href="http://johncage.org/2012/events.html">dozens of events all over the world</a> this year, honoring John Cage&rsquo;s centennial.&nbsp; Seattle artists will gather in September to put on a concert on what would have been his 100<sup>th</sup> birthday. And at Cornish College of the Arts, there will be a concert of Cage&#39;s chamber music on September 14th. Watch the <a href="http://www.cornish.edu/music/calendar/">Cornish web site</a> for more details.</p>Sun, 15 Jul 2012 08:03:03 -0400http://www.kplu.org/post/john-cage-great-musical-avant-garde-seattle-roots
http://www.kplu.org/post/john-cage-great-musical-avant-garde-seattle-roots<p>Many experts call him the greatest iconoclast of 20th-century music.</p><p>The avant-garde composer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage">John Cage</a> is perhaps best known for his pioneering use of silence in music. He also broke ground with the use of everyday objects as instruments, electronics and chance in composition.</p><p>He was born in California and died in New York. But some of his most formative years took place in Seattle.</p><p>Festivals around the world are <a href="http://johncage.org/2012/events.html">celebrating his centennial this year,</a> many of them highlighting innovations that Cage first developed in the Pacific Northwest.</p><p>Case in point: the <a href="http://www.achtbruecken.de/"><em>Acht Bruecken</em></a> festival of new music, in Cologne, Germany.</p><p>An open-air tribute to Cage opened the eight-day celebration of his vision. At the foot of the famous Cologne Cathedral, four choirs, two orchestras and a big band performed a new piece called&nbsp; <em>EurOratorio</em>.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s an hour-long collage of quotes from well-known classical tunes, peppered with weird sounds and unconventional instruments. Power tools, hair dryers, even a car that drives onto the plaza were part of the composition.</p><p>Along with singing and conducting, Baritone Thomas Bonni got to play a lawn mower and his favorite: a nail gun.</p><p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s really a nice instrument. Very funny, fun for boys, very heavy and &lsquo;paff!&rsquo; &hellip;super!&rdquo; Bonni exclaimed, smiling after the show.</p><p>He says this kind of work inspires him, because he gets to play such an active role. The performers communicate via radio headsets and are given general instructions, such as &ldquo;create a field in A minor.&rdquo;</p><p>&ldquo;But we can also use our own impression and do what we want. We can react on what the others are doing. It&rsquo;s like playing, like playing like children play,&rdquo; Bonni says.</p><p>Festival Director<a href="http://www.koelner-philharmonie.de/louwrens-langevoort/"> Louwrens Langevoort</a>, says as noisy as the opening performance turned out, it&rsquo;s above all the composer&rsquo;s pioneering work with silence that sets him apart, especially the famous piece, <em>4&rsquo;33&rdquo;</em>, in which a pianist comes on stage and sits there for 4 minutes and 33 seconds, never playing any notes.</p><blockquote><p>&ldquo;He made people discover the music or the sounds around themselves. Or: the fact that there is never no sound. And that&rsquo;s something which was new for his time and I think it&rsquo;s still very revolutionary,&rdquo; Langevoort says.</p></blockquote><p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHnL7aS64Y</p><p>Langevoort is also the head of the <a href="http://www.koelner-philharmonie.de/">Cologne Philharmonic</a>. He says Cage wasn&rsquo;t afraid to do unorthodox things.An interactive display inside the lobby of the symphony hall illustrates that with one of his most famous innovations: a prepared piano.</p><p>Passersby are encouraged to put screws, straws, bits of paper and ping pong balls between the piano&rsquo;s strings, to experiment with altering its sound.</p><p>Langevoort demonstrates how a clear note is dampened and ends up sounding more like a gong.</p><p>"And if you do that on every note in a different preparation, you get a very interesting score, in which we say, &lsquo;are we playing piano? Or is this a percussion instrument?&rsquo; And that makes it so funny,&rdquo; he says.</p><p>And Langevoort says the fascination with Cage becomes more meaningful because his ideas extended beyond music. He was also interested in visual arts and collaborated for most of his life with his partner, Merce Cunningham, a modern ballet dancer.</p><blockquote><p>&lsquo;Let&rsquo;s say, he was not stuck only on music, but he was really an artist who was wide into arts. And that&#39;s something which is different with quite a lot of composers, who make beautiful music, but are forgetting that they&#39;re living in a world which is bigger than only music,&rdquo; Lagevoort says.</p></blockquote><p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca2iVll-N0g</p><p>Some say Cage&rsquo;s interdisciplinary approach first blossomed in the Pacific Northwest.</p><blockquote><p>&ldquo;It was really in Seattle that Cage emerged as a professional composer,&rdquo; says <a href="http://www.cornish.edu/music/faculty/jarrad_powell/">Jarrad Powell</a>, who teaches composition and gamelan at <a href="http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=596">Cornish College of the Arts.</a></p></blockquote><p>Cage worked there for two intense years, starting in 1938. He was an accompanist and composer in the dance department.</p><p>&ldquo;Ultimately, he wasn&rsquo;t here that long. 1938 through 1940. But while he was here it was a very fertile time for him,&rdquo; Powell says.</p><p>Powell says Cage developed ideas in Seattle that influenced his music for the rest of his career - innovations in materials, methods and structure.</p><p>While at Cornish, he wrote the very first piece for prepared piano &ndash; which for the next decade became one of his signature sounds.</p><p></p><p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwJLGUgs1jc</p><p>He founded an avant-garde percussion ensemble that toured around the region, with dancers performing many of his compositions.</p><p>And he began experimenting with electronics. Powell says Cornish had one of the first radio schools in the US. Cage saw an opportunity in the studios.</p><p>He made a piece called &lsquo;Imaginary Landscape No. 1&rsquo; , which used the turntables in the radio studio and records&nbsp; of test tones that were meant for testing the equipment. Cage turned them into musical sounds and&nbsp; blended them with acoustic sound sources, such as a bowed symbol and a piano.</p><blockquote><p>"And a lot of people cite that as the first example of DJing and hip hop or something &ndash; because he&rsquo;s actually not just playing a record, he&rsquo;s using the record itself and the turntable as a musical instrument,&rdquo; Powell says.</p></blockquote><p><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_CC_tdtTjs</p><p>Powell says this kind of innovation flourished because of Cornish and its founder&rsquo;s philosophy, which created a good atmosphere for interdisciplinary adventures in creativity.</p><blockquote><p>&ldquo;Nellie Cornish was very innovative. Cornish was a school of allied arts. And that was a rare thing in the world. One where you could have dance and music together as well as visual art. And of course Cage met Morris Graves and Mark Tobey here &ndash; huge influences on his career. They were visual artists. He met Merce Cunningham here, a dancer. So those people were all huge influences on his life.&rdquo;</p></blockquote><p>But as much as the environment fostered him, Powell says it was also John Cage&rsquo;s unique spirit that pushed his art forward. He was a lighthearted revolutionary with a sunny disposition. In situations when people might be&nbsp; inclined to mock him, he would just smile and power through. A great example of this was his appearance in 1960 on the popular TV game show, <em>What&#39;s My Line</em>.</p><p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSulycqZH-U</p><blockquote><p>&ldquo;The audience loved him because of his personality and how he was able to communicate to them. I think that was one of his strengths. So over time, people opened up more to his music. And now, you can&rsquo;t &ndash; you have to consider him to be one of the important composers of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, even if your musical interests do not embrace his music.&rdquo;</p></blockquote><p>Cologne&rsquo;s festival director Langevoort says that spirit is alive and well in all of the interactive music they&rsquo;ve been re-creating &ndash; like the prepared piano that people are encouraged to alter with straws and ping pong balls. He says installations like this one take the art off a pedestal and help grow the audience for classical music.</p><blockquote><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s just fun. And if you make fun of music, you&rsquo;re much closer to it,&rdquo; Langevoort says.</p></blockquote><p>Cologne&rsquo;s festival is one of <a href="http://johncage.org/2012/events.html">dozens of events all over the world</a> this year, honoring John Cage&rsquo;s centennial.&nbsp; Seattle artists will gather in September to put on a concert on what would have been his 100<sup>th</sup> birthday. And at Cornish College of the Arts, there will be a concert of Cage&#39;s chamber music on September 14th. Watch the <a href="http://www.cornish.edu/music/calendar/">Cornish web site</a> for more details.</p>321no

Many experts call him the greatest iconoclast of 20th-century music.

The avant-garde composer John Cage is perhaps best known for his pioneering use of silence in music. He also broke ground with the use of everyday objects as instruments, electronics and chance in composition.

He was born in California and died in New York. But some of his most formative years took place in Seattle.

Case in point: the Acht Bruecken festival of new music, in Cologne, Germany.

An open-air tribute to Cage opened the eight-day celebration of his vision. At the foot of the famous Cologne Cathedral, four choirs, two orchestras and a big band performed a new piece called EurOratorio. It’s an hour-long collage of quotes from well-known classical tunes, peppered with weird sounds and unconventional instruments. Power tools, hair dryers, even a car that drives onto the plaza were part of the composition.

Along with singing and conducting, Baritone Thomas Bonni got to play a lawn mower and his favorite: a nail gun.

“That’s really a nice instrument. Very funny, fun for boys, very heavy and ‘paff!’ …super!” Bonni exclaimed, smiling after the show.

He says this kind of work inspires him, because he gets to play such an active role. The performers communicate via radio headsets and are given general instructions, such as “create a field in A minor.”

“But we can also use our own impression and do what we want. We can react on what the others are doing. It’s like playing, like playing like children play,” Bonni says.

Festival Director Louwrens Langevoort, says as noisy as the opening performance turned out, it’s above all the composer’s pioneering work with silence that sets him apart, especially the famous piece, 4’33”, in which a pianist comes on stage and sits there for 4 minutes and 33 seconds, never playing any notes.

“He made people discover the music or the sounds around themselves. Or: the fact that there is never no sound. And that’s something which was new for his time and I think it’s still very revolutionary,” Langevoort says.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHnL7aS64Y

Langevoort is also the head of the Cologne Philharmonic. He says Cage wasn’t afraid to do unorthodox things.An interactive display inside the lobby of the symphony hall illustrates that with one of his most famous innovations: a prepared piano.

Passersby are encouraged to put screws, straws, bits of paper and ping pong balls between the piano’s strings, to experiment with altering its sound.

Langevoort demonstrates how a clear note is dampened and ends up sounding more like a gong.

"And if you do that on every note in a different preparation, you get a very interesting score, in which we say, ‘are we playing piano? Or is this a percussion instrument?’ And that makes it so funny,” he says.

And Langevoort says the fascination with Cage becomes more meaningful because his ideas extended beyond music. He was also interested in visual arts and collaborated for most of his life with his partner, Merce Cunningham, a modern ballet dancer.

‘Let’s say, he was not stuck only on music, but he was really an artist who was wide into arts. And that's something which is different with quite a lot of composers, who make beautiful music, but are forgetting that they're living in a world which is bigger than only music,” Lagevoort says.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca2iVll-N0g

Some say Cage’s interdisciplinary approach first blossomed in the Pacific Northwest.

Cage worked there for two intense years, starting in 1938. He was an accompanist and composer in the dance department.

“Ultimately, he wasn’t here that long. 1938 through 1940. But while he was here it was a very fertile time for him,” Powell says.

Powell says Cage developed ideas in Seattle that influenced his music for the rest of his career - innovations in materials, methods and structure.

While at Cornish, he wrote the very first piece for prepared piano – which for the next decade became one of his signature sounds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwJLGUgs1jc

He founded an avant-garde percussion ensemble that toured around the region, with dancers performing many of his compositions.

And he began experimenting with electronics. Powell says Cornish had one of the first radio schools in the US. Cage saw an opportunity in the studios.

He made a piece called ‘Imaginary Landscape No. 1’ , which used the turntables in the radio studio and records of test tones that were meant for testing the equipment. Cage turned them into musical sounds and blended them with acoustic sound sources, such as a bowed symbol and a piano.

"And a lot of people cite that as the first example of DJing and hip hop or something – because he’s actually not just playing a record, he’s using the record itself and the turntable as a musical instrument,” Powell says.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_CC_tdtTjs

Powell says this kind of innovation flourished because of Cornish and its founder’s philosophy, which created a good atmosphere for interdisciplinary adventures in creativity.

“Nellie Cornish was very innovative. Cornish was a school of allied arts. And that was a rare thing in the world. One where you could have dance and music together as well as visual art. And of course Cage met Morris Graves and Mark Tobey here – huge influences on his career. They were visual artists. He met Merce Cunningham here, a dancer. So those people were all huge influences on his life.”

But as much as the environment fostered him, Powell says it was also John Cage’s unique spirit that pushed his art forward. He was a lighthearted revolutionary with a sunny disposition. In situations when people might be inclined to mock him, he would just smile and power through. A great example of this was his appearance in 1960 on the popular TV game show, What's My Line.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSulycqZH-U

“The audience loved him because of his personality and how he was able to communicate to them. I think that was one of his strengths. So over time, people opened up more to his music. And now, you can’t – you have to consider him to be one of the important composers of the 20th century, even if your musical interests do not embrace his music.”

Cologne’s festival director Langevoort says that spirit is alive and well in all of the interactive music they’ve been re-creating – like the prepared piano that people are encouraged to alter with straws and ping pong balls. He says installations like this one take the art off a pedestal and help grow the audience for classical music.

“It’s just fun. And if you make fun of music, you’re much closer to it,” Langevoort says.

Cologne’s festival is one of dozens of events all over the world this year, honoring John Cage’s centennial. Seattle artists will gather in September to put on a concert on what would have been his 100th birthday. And at Cornish College of the Arts, there will be a concert of Cage's chamber music on September 14th. Watch the Cornish web site for more details.

]]>Grassroots politics in Seattle hits the big screens<p>A political tale of the little guy going up against the establishment that happened in Seattle more than a decade ago is now on the big screen in movie theaters.</p><p>The film<a href="http://www.grassrootsthefilm.com/"> <em>Grassroots</em> </a>tells the mostly true story about former monorail champion <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Cogswell">Grant Cogswell</a> running against incumbent <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_McIver">Richard McIver </a>for a seat on the Seattle City Council in 2001.</p><p>Mon, 25 Jun 2012 07:00:00 -0400http://www.kplu.org/post/grassroots-politics-seattle-hits-big-screens
http://www.kplu.org/post/grassroots-politics-seattle-hits-big-screens<p>A political tale of the little guy going up against the establishment that happened in Seattle more than a decade ago is now on the big screen in movie theaters.</p><p>The film<a href="http://www.grassrootsthefilm.com/"> <em>Grassroots</em> </a>tells the mostly true story about former monorail champion <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Cogswell">Grant Cogswell</a> running against incumbent <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_McIver">Richard McIver </a>for a seat on the Seattle City Council in 2001.</p><p>489no

A political tale of the little guy going up against the establishment that happened in Seattle more than a decade ago is now on the big screen in movie theaters.

]]>LeMay Car Museum displays history and art of autos <p>The new LeMay Car Museum in Tacoma is a dream come true for car lovers. But it&rsquo;s also worth a visit if you&rsquo;re into art. The color and shape of the vehicles is a feast for the eyes, and there&rsquo;s art history too, if you consider such things as hood ornaments and how they&rsquo;ve changed over time.</p><p>Listen to this week&rsquo;s Artscape by clicking the listen button above to get the full picture.</p><p>Mon, 11 Jun 2012 07:30:00 -0400http://www.kplu.org/post/lemay-car-museum-displays-history-and-art-autos
http://www.kplu.org/post/lemay-car-museum-displays-history-and-art-autos<p>The new LeMay Car Museum in Tacoma is a dream come true for car lovers. But it&rsquo;s also worth a visit if you&rsquo;re into art. The color and shape of the vehicles is a feast for the eyes, and there&rsquo;s art history too, if you consider such things as hood ornaments and how they&rsquo;ve changed over time.</p><p>Listen to this week&rsquo;s Artscape by clicking the listen button above to get the full picture.</p><p>328no

The new LeMay Car Museum in Tacoma is a dream come true for car lovers. But it’s also worth a visit if you’re into art. The color and shape of the vehicles is a feast for the eyes, and there’s art history too, if you consider such things as hood ornaments and how they’ve changed over time.

Listen to this week’s Artscape by clicking the listen button above to get the full picture.

]]>At SIFF, local film "Eden" spins a true tale of sex trafficking<p>The film "Eden" tells the story of human trafficking through the tale of a Korean American teen in New Mexico. It&#39;s part horror film and part survivor&#39;s tale and it&#39;s based on a true story.</p><p>It&#39;s Seattle director Megan Griffith&#39;s third feature film.&nbsp; And it&#39;s a project she was drawn to because of the actual narrative:</p>Mon, 21 May 2012 08:02:02 -0400http://www.kplu.org/post/siff-local-film-eden-spins-true-tale-sex-trafficking
http://www.kplu.org/post/siff-local-film-eden-spins-true-tale-sex-trafficking<p>The film "Eden" tells the story of human trafficking through the tale of a Korean American teen in New Mexico. It&#39;s part horror film and part survivor&#39;s tale and it&#39;s based on a true story.</p><p>It&#39;s Seattle director Megan Griffith&#39;s third feature film.&nbsp; And it&#39;s a project she was drawn to because of the actual narrative:</p>331no

The film "Eden" tells the story of human trafficking through the tale of a Korean American teen in New Mexico. It's part horror film and part survivor's tale and it's based on a true story.

It's Seattle director Megan Griffith's third feature film. And it's a project she was drawn to because of the actual narrative: